1
Constella)on
Speed
introduc)on

2
Agile Basics
@selleithy

Please do not distribute this
materials without a verbal
or written consent from
SparkAgility.
3

Salah Elleithy
salah@sparkagility.com
@selleithy410.262.5550
15 years
Enabling agility and enhancing
team capabilities serving as a
Project Manager, Scrum Master,
Business analyst, Team Facilitator
and Agile Coach.
Founder, Certified Trainer & Managing
Consultant supporting organizations in
enabling agility and enhancing team
performance.
B.S. in Business / Accounting
M.S. in Financial Management &
Information Systems
Agile Nova Meetup Organizer
Agile 2014 Track reviewer
PMI Agile CoP
Agile Coach Camp 2014
Work
Education
Certifications
Project Management Professional (PMP),
Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP), Certified
Scrum Master (CSM), ICAgile Certified
Professional in Agile Coaching & Facilitation
(ICP-TC), Certified Trainer in Training from
the Back of the Room
4
PMI Baltimore Chapter

Learning Objectives
! To discover what makes agility
an essential ingredient not only to
survive but to thrive.
! Understand the agile mindset.
! Recognize the difference
between doing agile and being
agile.
5

Logistics
6

Pledge of Learning
• As a participant:
– I will do my best to be on time so that I don’t miss any portion of
the session
– I will be present physically and mentally so that I can retain more
of what is covered
– I will do my best to maintain my focus on learning and participate
so that I can get the most out of the session
– I will respect all participants thoughts and opinions so that I can
benefit from others’ experience
7
Uses that apply to different initiatives are: Ground Rules, Working
agreements, Training Alliance and Team Charter.

Our Backlog
8
Warm up
activities for
the group!
Speed
introduction!
Defining Agility,
Traditional vs.
Agile approach!
Explain the origins
of Agile & the
Agile manifesto
(values and
principles)!
Challenges to
enabling Agility!
Stages of
Learning!
Understand the
Agile Mindset!
Developing soft
skills and
understanding
communication
barriers!
Agile
methodologies
(frameworks)
and practices!
Value-driven
Delivery!
Tracking
Progress!
Scrum in
brief!
Self-organizing
teams (It’s
not what you
think)!
Collaboration
Techniques!
Continuous
Improvement!
Retrospectives!

Defining
Agility,
Traditional vs.
Agile
9

Agility is the ability to both create
and respond to change in order
to profit in a turbulent business
environment.
- Jim Highsmith
10

Agility is the flexibility to navigate the constraints
of your project to get the most VALUE as quickly as
possible. is
- Dr. Ahmed Sidky
11

Biggest
12

Are we solving
Right
the
Problem?
13
Solution?
Are we building

14
Why Agile?

Reasons for Agile Adoption
Source:
VersionOne
7th
Annual
State
of
Agile
Development
Survey
15

Benefits of being Agile
Source:
VersionOne
7th
Annual
State
of
Agile
Development
Survey
16

Leading causes of failed Agile projects
Source:
VersionOne
7th
Annual
State
of
Agile
Development
Survey
17

Traditional
vs. Agile
18

19

Gulf of Evaluation
20
IKIWISI (I’ll know it when I see it)
EXPERIENCE

Success Factors
1994 2011 2012 - 2013
1 User Involvement Executive
Source: Standish Group CHAOS Manifesto 2013
management support
2 Executive Management Support Executive
management support
User Involvement
3 Clear Statement of Requirements Clear business
objectives
Optimization
4 Proper Planning Emotional maturity Skilled resources
5 Realistic Expectations Optimization Project management
expertise
6 Smaller Project Milestones Agile process Agile Process
7 Competent Staff Project management
expertise
Clear Business
Objectives
8 Ownership Skilled resources Emotional Maturity
9 Clear Vision & Objectives Execution Execution
10 Hard-working, Focused staff Tools & Infrastructure Tools & Infrastructure
21

“Pre-Agile” Organizational Structure
Domain
Experts /
Subject Matter
Experts
Users /
Customers
Governance
Business Stakeholders
Project Managers
IT
Credit:
Dr.
Ahmed
Sidky
Analysts Developers Testers
" Coordinate work
across different groups.
" Monitor progress and
identify risks.
" Report project status
to sponsors and
stakeholders.
" Implement strategies
to avoid project failure.
22

“Pre-Agile” Project Team (The Matrix)
Domain Experts /
Subject Matter
Experts
Users /
Customers
Governance
Business Stakeholders
Project Managers
IT
Credit:
Dr.
Ahmed
Sidky
Analysts Developers Testers
" Coordinate work
across different groups.
" Monitor team progress
and identify risks
" Report project status
to sponsors and
stakeholders.
" Implement strategies
to avoid project failure.
23

Meet the ‘Agile Project Team’
Stakeholders IT
Credit:
Dr.
Ahmed
Sidky
The Value Team
Value Facilitator
[Product Owner -
SCRUM]
Domain
Experts
The Delivery Team
Governance
Delivery Facilitator
[Scrum Master -
SCRUM]
Users/Customers
Analysts
Developers
Testers
24

Facilitation is the art of leading people through
processes toward agreed-upon outcomes in
a manner that encourages participation,
ownership and creativity of all involved.
- The Grove Consultants International
Effective facilitation skills are critical to help the
team have effective collaboration meetings.
Credit:
Dr.
Ahmed
Sidky
Team Facilitators
25

Origins of Agile
& the Agile
Manifesto
(values &
principles)
26

Beyond
Agile
Alistair
Cockburn
wrote, The Oath
of non
allegiance, I
promise not to
exclude from
consideration
any idea based
on its source,
but to consider
ideas across
schools and
heritages in
order to find the
ones that best
suit the current
situation.
27
1930
Walter
Shewhart,
a quality expert
at Bell Labs
who proposed
a series of short
“plan-do-study-act”
(PDSA)
cycles for
quality
improvement.
Quality guru W.
Edwards
Deming began
vigorously
promoting
PDSA.
1960
NASA’s
Project
Mercury
applied IID in
Software and
ran with very
short half-day
iterations that
were time-boxed.
Winston
Royce, wrote
an article
called
‘Managing the
Development
of Large
Software
Systems’ on
what would
become known
as the waterfall
model.
1970
1972
TRW applied IID in
a major project –
the $100 million
TRW/Army Site
Defense software
project for balistic
missile defense.
Barry Boehm, the
originator of the
IID spiral model in
the
mid-1980s, was
chief scientist at
TRW.
Light Airborne
Multipurpose
System, part of
the US Navy’s
helicopter-to-ship
weapon system
used IID. A four
year 200-person-year
effort
involving millions
of lines of code,
LAMPS was
incrementally
delivered in 45
time-boxed
iterations (one
month per
iteration).
mid-1970
Source:
Larmen
&
Basili.
IteraRve
and
Incremental
Development.
A
brief
History
1976
Tom Gilb,
published
Software metrics
coining the term,
in which he
addressed his IID
practice-evolutionary
project
management-and
introduced the
terms “evolution”
and “evolutionary”
to the process
lexicon.
System
Development
Corp. project build
an air defense
system in 1977 and
finished in 1980
using incremental
development.
1984
1985
Barry Boehm,
published “A
Spiral Model of
Software
Development and
Enhancement”.
Fredrick
Brooks, a
prominent
software
engineering
thought leader
published the
classic, “No
Silver Bullet”
extolling the
advantages of
IID.
1986
1990s
Ken Schwaber and
Jeff Sutherland,
started applying
what would become
known as the
Scrum method. The
method took
inspiration from a
Japanese IID
approach used for
non-software
products at Honda,
Canon, and Fujitsu
in the 1980s ; from
Sashimi (“slices” or
iterations) and from
a version of Scrum
described in 1986.
2001
In February 2001, a
group of 17 process
experts-representing
DSDM, XP, Scrum, FDD
and others- interested
in promoting modern,
simple IID methods and
principles met in Utah
to discuss common
ground. From this
meeting came the Agile
Alliance and the now
popular catch phrase
“agile methods”, all of
which apply IID
Kent Beck joined
Chrysler C3 payroll
project. It was in
this context that the
full set of XP
practices matured,
with some
collaboration by
Ron Jefferies and
inspiration from
earlier 1980s work
with Ward
Cunningham.
1996
2010

Source: Dr. Winston W. Royce
“I believe in this concept,
but the implementation
described above is risky
and invites failure.”
28

“Hopefully, the iterative
interaction between the
various phases is confined
to successive steps.”
29
Source:
Managing
the
development
of
large
SoVware
System,
Dr.
Winston
W.
Royce
h[p://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/waterfall.pdf

Agile Manifesto
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and
helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions
Working software
Customer collaboration
Responding to change
Process and tools
Comprehensive documentation
Contract negotiation
Following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the
items on the left more.
30
Source: agilemanifesto.org

31
Where do you fall?
Individuals
and
interactions
Timebox: 2 minutes
Process and
tools
Responding
to Change
Following a plan
Working
software
Comprehensive
documentation
Customer
collaboration
Contract
negotiation

Agile Principles
32
1. Our highest
priority is to satisfy
the customer
through early and
continuous delivery
of valuable
software.
Source: agilemanifesto.org
2. Welcome changing
requirements, even
late in development.
Agile processes
harness change for
the customer’s
competitive
advantage.
5. Build projects
around motivated
individuals. Give
them the
environment and
support they need,
and trust them to
get the job done.
3. Deliver working
software frequently,
from a couple of
weeks to a couple of
months, with a
preference to the
shorter timescale.
6. The most efficient
and effective method
of conveying
information to and
within a development
team is face-to-face
conversation.
4. Business people
and developers
work together
throughout the
project.

Agile Principles
33
10. Simplicity--the art
of maximizing the
amount of work not
done--is essential.
Source: agilemanifesto.org
11. The best
architectures,
requirements, and
designs emerge from
self-organizing
teams.
9. Continuous
attention to technical
excellence and good
design enhances
agility.
12. At regular
intervals, the team
reflects on how to
become more
effective, then tunes
and adjusts its
behavior accordingly.
7. Working software
is the primary
measure of
progress.
8. Agile processes
promote sustainable
development. The
sponsors,
developers, and users
should be able to
maintain a constant
pace indefinitely.

Declaration of Interdependence
(DOI)
Source:
pmdoi.org
34
We are a community of project leaders that are highly successful at
delivering results. To achieve these results:
We increase return
on investment by
making continuous
flow of value our
focus.
We deliver reliable
results by engaging
customers in
frequent
interactions and
shared ownership.
We expect
uncertainty and
manage for it
through iterations,
anticipation, and
adaptation.
We unleash creativity
and innovation by
recognizing that
individuals are the
ultimate source of
value, and creating an
environment where
they can make a
difference.
We boost
performance through
group accountability
for results and share
responsibility for
team effectiveness.
We improve
effectiveness and
reliability through
situationally specific
strategies, processes
and practices.

Challenges to
enabling
Agility
35

36

Why do we resist change?
37

Inability to see the “Big Picture”
Why
Agile?
(Purpose)
Learning
Agile
(Being)
Practicing
Agile
(Doing)
Focusing on one while neglecting the others will lead to subpar results.
Credit: Based loosely on Jim Highsmith. Adaptive leadership: Accelerating Enterprise Agility.
38

Underestimating the scope of change
Leadership Process
Guide
(Teach, Facilitate,
Mentor, Coach)
Example
(Frameworks/
Practices)
Relationships
Establishing a
framework based
on the company’s
context with a set
of practices that
align with the
(Structure / Incentives)
company
Understanding
the situational
leadership.
People
Evaluating environment.
current structure
and incentives to
support the
desired
outcomes.
39

Unwillingness to adjust the process
Define desired outcomes
(What are we trying to accomplish? And
how do we know when we are there?)
Measure results (Collect data at
regular intervals and make it
transparent and visible)
Adjust the process (Based
on data and feedback from
teams)
40

Stages of
Learning
(Shu Ha Ri)
41

SHU
Follow the
Rule
“Obey”
Shu Ha Ri
HA
Break the
Rule
“Detach”
RI
Be the
Rule
“Separate”
42

43
Stages of Learning
SHU (Follow the Rule “Obey”)
• Follow the
rules exactly
without
modifications.
• May not
necessarily
understand the
intent behind
the rules.

44
Stages of Learning
HA (Break the Rule “Detach”)
• Know more
techniques and
can shift
between them.
• Have some
understanding
of the intent
behind the
rules.

45
Stages of Learning
RI (Be the Rule “Separate”)
• Know the
techniques and
apply them
unconsciously.
• Understand
the intent behind
the rules and
what impact if
modified or
eliminated.

Understanding
the Agile
Mindset
46

Ability
Characteristic Fixed Growth
Avoid Failure ☐
☐
Continuous Learning ☐
☐
Exert effort to learn ☐
☐
Embrace challenges ☐
☐
Ask for feedback ☐
☐
Criticism is personal ☐
☐
Look smart ☐
☐
Stick to what I know ☐
☐
Not afraid to fail ☐
☐
Criticism is about
capabilities
☐
☐
Failure means lack of talent ☐
☐
Growth vs. Fixed Mindset
47

Ability
Characteristic Fixed Growth
Avoid Failure #
☐
Continuous Learning ☐
#
Exert effort to learn ☐
#
Embrace challenges ☐
#
Ask for feedback ☐
#
Criticism is personal #
☐
Look smart #
☐
Stick to what I know #
☐
Not afraid to fail ☐
#
Criticism is about
capabilities
☐
#
Failure means lack of talent #
☐
Inherent
and
sta)c
Can
grow
48
Growth vs. Fixed Mindset

What’s driving this behavior?
“Are you sure you can do this,
maybe I don’t have the
talent.”
“What if I fail – I’ll be a
failure.”
“If I don’t try, I can protect
myself and keep my
dignity.”
“This would have been a snap
if I really had talent.”
“It’s not my fault. It was
something or someone
else’s fault.”
“I’m not sure I can do it now but I
think I can learn to with time and
effort.”
“Most successful people had failures
along the way.”
“If I don’t try, I automatically fail.
Where’s the dignity in that?”
“That is so wrong. Basketball wasn’t
easy for Michael Jordan and
science wasn’t easy for Thomas
Edison. They had a passion and
put in tons of effort.”
“If you don’t take responsibility, you
can’t fix it. My advise is to listen –
however painful it is – and learn
whatever you can.”
How can we promote?
49
How can we change?
Timebox: 3 minutes

What is Agile?
50

Agile is a MINDSET
SCRUM
Manifested through
many different
PRACTICES
Guided by
12 PRINCIPLES
Established through
4 VALUES
Doing Agile
Credit: Dr. Ahmed Sidky
51
Unit tests
Daily meetings
Backlog
Definition of Ready
Definition of Done
Burndown chart
Kanban Board
Three Questions
Iterations
Story Mapping
Retrospectives User Stories
Acceptance tests
Being Agile

Source:
Agile
Alliance,h[p://guide.agilealliance.org/subway.html
52

Developing Soft
Skills and
Understanding
Communication
Barriers
53

Agile Values
Individuals and interactions
over
Processes and tools
Working software
over
Comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration
over
Contract Negotiation
Responding to change
over
Following a plan
54

Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
Source: Daniel Goleman
Self
Self-confidence
Awareness
Self
Management
Social
Awareness
Relationship
Management
Emotional Intelligence
Social Intelligence
Emotional
awareness
Accurate self-assessment
Self-Control
Trustworthiness
Ownership Adaptability
Innovation
Understanding others
Developing
Service others
Orientation
Leveraging
diversity Political
awareness
Influence
Communication
Leadership
Conflict
management
Change
catalyst
Building bonds
Collaboration Team abilities
55

What soft skills are needed on
your projects?
! Identify the top10 soft
skills that are most
important to the success
of the team
! Each member at your
table gets 3 dots to vote
on the ones that are most
important in their opinion
! Define 2 action items to
improve the identified
skills
56
Timebox: 3 minutes

Soft Skills
Ownership Commitment
Collaboration Responsibility
Servant Leadership 57
Source: Peter Bregman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuPfbTAVBP4#t=15
Trust
Morale
Community
Attitude
Courage

What are your team’s
communication barriers?
! Identify a list of
the most
common
communication
barriers
! With your table
group, prioritize
the list from
high to low
58
Timebox: 3 minutes

59
The Art of Listening
Level 1:
Ignoring
(Not really
listening at
all)
Level 2:
Pretending
(Yeah, uh-huh,
right)
Level 3:
Selective
Listening
(Hearing
only parts)
Level 4:
Attentive
Listening
(Focusing
and paying
attention
to the
words)
Source: The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey
Level 5:
Empathic
Listening
(Understand
the other
person’s
paradigm
and how
they feel)

Barriers to Listening
We evaluate:
we agree or
disagree
We probe:
ask questions
from our own
frame of
reference
We advise:
give counsel
based on our
experience
We interpret:
try to figure
people out,
explain their
motives, based on
our own paradigm
Source: The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey
60

Effective Communication
Credit: Dr. Alistair Cockburn
61

Agile
methodologies
(frameworks)
and practices
62

Frameworks/Practices
Source:
Guide
to
Agile
PracRces.
Agile
Alliance,h[p://guide.agilealliance.org/subway.html
63

What are your practices?
Agile Practices (Non-Technical) Your Practices
• Project charter
• Team charter
• Backlog
• User Stories
• Definition of Ready
• Story Mapping
• Kanban Board
• Daily Stand-ups
• Three questions
• Definition of Done
• Facilitation
• Timebox
• Iterations
64

Value-driven
Delivery
65

Plan-driven Delivery
Idea Resources Requirements
Requirements
Shall do this
Will do that
Shall do this
Will do that
Shall do this
Will do that
Shall do this
Will do that
Everything is a
PRIORITY
Schedule
Deliver
How can we meet our “Initial Plan”?
Scope
Budget Schedule
66

Value-driven Delivery
Idea Resources Requirements Schedule Deliver
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
PRIORITIZED
Budget Schedule
Scope
A
C
D
B
E
F
G
H
How can we deliver the highest value in the time we have?
67

Plan vs. Value driven delivery
Value
Value driven delivery
Plan driven delivery
Time
Time is up
There is value that
can be delivered to
the customer.
There is no value to
be delivered to the
customer.
68

Where
does the
maximum
value
happen?
When can
we deliver
the
product?
Building a bit at a time “Incrementing”
We build to finish
Build a rough version, validates it, bit at a time “Iterating”
We build to learn
Throughout
Where do
we deliver
value
faster?
Source: Jeff Patton
Here
69
Incremental vs. Iterative
Where does the maximum learning happen?

Slicing value
Vision Desired
has to satisfy
Outcomes
Product Backlog
FeFaetautruer e1 1 FeFaetautruer e1 1 FeFaetautruer e1 1 Feature 1
who has
Goals and Needs pay
Iteration Backlog
User Story 1
User Story 2 User Story 3
User Story 4 User Story 5 User Story 6
realized by to buy
broken into
70

All we doing is looking
at the time line, from
the moment the
customer gives us an
order to the point
when we collect the
cash. And we are
reducing the time
line by reducing the
non-value adding
wastes. –Taiichi Ohno. Father of TPS
71
Receiving Value
Idea
Usage

Waste
In Manufacturing In Knowledge work
In-Process Inventory Partially Done Work
Extra Processing Extra Processes
Overproduction Extra Features
Transportation Handoffs
Waiting Delays
Motion Task Switching
Defects Defects (Errors)
Source: 7 wastes in software. Mary and Tom Poppendieck
72

M
Prioritizing Value
S
C
W
High
Business Value
Low
To Do Doing Done
73

Minimally Marketable Features (MMF)
M
S
C
W
High
Business Value
Low
To Do Doing Done
Minimally Marketable Features (MMF)
MUST HAVE
Bells and whistles
NICE TO HAVE
74

Quick Review
• Pair up and share a
few facts that you
have learned about
agile so far
• Take notes to share
what you discussed
with another team
member who is not
here today
Timebox: 3 minutes 75

Tracking
Progress
76

Agile Metrics
# How are we doing?
(Project, team and
process health)
# What’s preventing us
from making
progress?
# What’s our planned
vs. estimated pace?
77

Burn Up charts
Story points
Expected velocity: 10 points/iteration
Iteration
Velocity
Iteration Expected Actual
0 0 0
1 10 10
2 20 19
3 30 20
4 40 35
5 50 50
6 60 58
7 70 63
8 80 63
9 90 78
10 100 90
11 110 100
12 120 105
Forecasted
Additional iterations: 2
Burn Up charts give an indicator whether the team will deliver the
functionality or need to add more iterations.
78

Burn down charts
Velocity
Expected velocity: 10 points / Iteration Iteration Expected Actual
0 120 120
1 110 120
2 100 110
3 90 100
4 80 97
5 70 95
6 60 80
7 50 70
8 40 62
9 30 45
10 20 37
11 10 25
12 0 20
Additional iterations: 2
Forecasted
Burn down charts shows the points remaining at the beginning of each iteration
79

Cumulative Flow Diagram
# A cumulative flow
diagram (CFD)
shows the status
of work in different
queues (Analysis,
Development,
Testing,
Deployment)
# It also shows if
there is a
bottleneck that
needs to be
addressed
The widening area may be
an indication of
bottlenecks (work items
are not being moved to
the next queue
This area hasn’t
changed and it
may indicate a
bottleneck with
Dev tasks
80

Team Assessment Radar Chart
! A good tool for the
team to assess their
practices.
! It is an indicator on
how the team are
following their own
practices. Itera)on
81
Source:
Scaled
Agile
Framework
(SAFe)

SCRUM
in Brief
82

Source: Mike Cohn. Mountain Goat Software
83

Scrum Framework
• 3 roles
– Product Owner
– Scrum Master
– The Team
• 4 Ceremonies
– Sprint Planning
– Sprint Review
– Sprint Retrospective
– Daily scrum meeting
• 3 Artifacts:
– Product backlog
– Sprint backlog
– Burndown charts
84

Self-organizing
teams
(It’s now what
you think)
85

Agile Principles
# Agile Principle #5: Build
projects around motivated
individuals. Give them the
environment and support
they need, and trust them
to get the job done.
# Agile Principle #11: The
best architecture,
requirements, and designs
emerge from self-organizing
teams.
Source: agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
86

What motivates us?
Daniel Pink in his book ‘Drive:
the surprising truth about
what motivates us’ explains
that we are motivated by 3
simple things:
– Autonomy (wanting to direct
our own lives)
– Mastery (wanting to be good at
something)
– Purpose (wanting to make a
difference)
Source:
youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
87

Self-organizing teams
Creating a self-organizing
team entails:
# Getting the right people
# Articulating the product
vision, boundaries and
team roles
# Encouraging
collaboration
# Insisting on
accountability
# Fostering self-discipline
# Steering rather than
control
Source: Jim Highsmith
88

Roles
Generalist Specialist Generalizing Specialist
Pro: Has one or more
technical specialties
(Java, Project
Management,
Business analysis)
Con: Lack of
knowledge in a
specific area may
create an
impediment
Pro: Has a deep
knowledge in one
domain area
Con: True specialists
may create
bottlenecks by
focusing too much
on their area and
missing the bigger
picture
Pro: has a dispersed
knowledge over a
wide array of areas
Con: May not be able
to help the team in a
specific area
Where does Agile teams fall?
89

How would Agile benefit you?
# Think of how you
would use agile in
your current role
# Pair up with
someone and
discuss
90 Timebox: 3 minutes

Collaboration
Techniques
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
– Helen Keller
91

Collaboration
Collaborate: to work
together especially in
some literacy, artistic or
scientific undertaking [1];
to work jointly with
others or together
especially in an
intellectual endeavor. [2]
[1] Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American
Language
[2] Merriam Webster Online Dictionary
Source: Jean Tabaka. Collaboration Explained
92

Collaboration Culture
93

Owning your ability
and power to create,
choose and attract
Doing what you have
to instead of what
you want to
Laying blame onto
oneself (often felt as
guilt)
Using excuses for
things being the way
they are
Source:
Christopher
Avery.
The
Responsibility
Process
Giving up to avoid
the pain of Shame
and Obligation
Holding others at
fault for causing
something
Giving up to avoid
the pain of Shame
and Obligation
94

What are the characteristics of high
performing teams?
# Pick a number
between 10 and 20
# Come up with <X>
characteristics of a
high performing team
95 Timebox: 3 minutes

Working Agreement
# What are the most
important values to
us as individuals and
as a team?
# What do we need to
do to succeed as a
team?
# How do we want to
resolve conflicts?
# How do we create a
safe space for
everyone?
96

Structured Meetings
! Why would people show up
to the meeting? (Purpose)
! How will we run our
meeting? (Process)
! What are the desired
outcomes of the meeting?
(Outcomes)
! What are the action items
and who own them? (Action
items)
! When do we reconvene for
follow up? (Follow through)
97

What’s your team working
agreement?
! If you were on a
team, what would
the working
agreement look
like?
! Write it down on
the flip chart
98
Timebox: 3 minutes

Continuous
Improvement
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and
write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.
–Alvin Toffler
99

Plan-Do-Check-Act
Recognize an
opportunity
and plan a
change
Test the change.
Carry out a small
scale study
Take action
based on what
you’ve learned in
the study
Review the test,
analyze the
results and
identify what
you’ve learned
The Deming Cycle
Source: ASQ.org
100

Agile Principle # 12: At regular intervals, the
team reflects on how to become more effective,
then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
Image credit: growingagile.co.za
101
Inspect
and
Adapt

Adapting over Conforming
! Delivering great products
requires exploration, not
tracking against a plan.
! Have the courage to explore
into the unknown and the
humility to recognize
mistakes and adapt to the
situation.
102

Retrospectives
103

Retrospectives
Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe
that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew
at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and
the situation at hand.
When:
At regular
intervals
(Usually at
the end of
each sprint)
Who:
The team
- Retrospective Prime Directive. Norm Kerth
Why:
Reflect on how to
become more
effective, then tune
and adjusts its
behavior accordingly
104

Conducting a Retro
Set the stage • Share the plan for the meeting.
• Establish purpose/focus of the retrospective.
Gather data • Ground the retrospective in facts, not opinions.
• Create a shared pool of data (based on the focus/purpose).
• Observe patterns.
• Build shared awareness.
Generate
insights
• Move from discussion to ACTION.
• Focus on what the team can accomplish not what’s
important (1-2 actions)
Decide what to
do
• Reiterate actions and follow up.
• Appreciate contributions.
Close the
retrospective
Source: Esther Derby
105

A Retrospective technique
! Team members
identify specific
things that the
team should:
! Start doing
! Stop doing
! Continue doing
! Another variation
may add:
! Do more of
! Do less of
106

A Good Retrospective
! Discuss any personal, team
or process issues openly.
! Discuss what worked and
what needs to change.
! Agree on top action items
to be addressed and fixed.
! Review these action items
at the beginning of the next
retrospective.
! Change it up (Innovation
games).
! Add the “Appreciation”
game every now and then.
107

Where to go from here?
! Assess where your team stand.
! Train the team.
! Identify projects that fit the Agile profile
! Raise awareness through lunch and learn sessions.
! Form a group of like-minded practitioners or join a
meet-up in your area.
! Find a mentor or a coach to help.
108

Roadmap
109
Explore
knowledge
&
competency
based
cer)fica)ons

We are covering specific learning
objectives from ICAgile Roadmap
Claim code: PMIBC0823
110

111

Q & A
112

“The important
thing is not to
stop questioning.
Curiosity has
its own reason
for existing.”
Albert
Einstein
113

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